Star Wars: The Last Jedi; Spoiler Edition [Enter at your peril]

[Aster Jen'allé]

Rey is never said to have been trained by anyone, and Luke never actually trains her in any Force skills. If melee combat is so easily translated to lightsabers then why doesn't the entire galaxy just use lightsabers? If anything, Rey's abilities make even less sense than before because not only does she wield a lightsaber, fly ships, defeat trained warriors, and move huge objects without any training, you now can't even use the cop-out explanation that she has Skywalker blood because her parents were nobodies.




Star Wars was always a mythological story. Now that Rian Johnson successfully deconstructed that, it's nothing. This is only a positive if you enjoy subverting things.

Luke does train her in force skills. More importantly: he trains her in what the force actually is. Now she can use that (not to mention the ancient jedi texts that are in her possession) to feel the force out for herself since she is so strong. She has been trained with melee weapons, she was a scavenger on a lawless planet for gods sakes, and that DOES apply to basic lightsaber combat. (to this little tidbit where you say, "then why doesn't the entire galaxy just use lightsabers?" Because: not everyone is force sensitive. Rey is strong in the force and thus has the reflexes to utilize a lightsaber when combined with her martial skill with other melee weapons.)
She doesn't move huge objects without training, she WAS trained so ignoring this point. She does defeat a trained warrior, but she is also a trained warrior. In fact, in the fight with Kylo literally everything was in her favor. Snoke says it better than I can when he states that Kylo was split in two when he murders Han Solo. He wasn't a confident trained warrior, he was an upset boy who just killed his father (not to mention getting shot by a bloody bowcaster and fighting with blood loss on a snow-cold planet against TWO people including a first order stormtrooper who was taught melee combat as a part of his basic training).

As to your second point, Star Wars was based on mythology, and the lovely thing about mythology is that it HUMANIZES its main characters. Almost any hero in mythology has a tragic flaw: Odysseus had his arrogance, Hercules murdered his wife and kids, and there are plenty more examples. Rian Johnson humanized Star Wars, and did what was necessary to propel it forward without dismissing what came before. Now, thanks to his efforts (and assumin JJ doesn't completely regress) our children can experience a Star Wars just as impactful as our originals instead of watching the same shitty nostalgia trip over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

 

[Name Haver]

Rey is not a "trained warrior" because at no point do we ever see her training in combat skills. Luke also never trains her in any skills on camera besides vague Force philosophy. He never trains her how to move objects or in any combat skills. You just made up that Rey is a trained warrior in your own mind. In fact, Rey evidently doesn't even need to be trained by Luke, because she already bested him in a melee fight! We never see Rey struggle with any of the skills that took Luke multiple movies to accomplish.

The fact that she was a scavenger does not automatically equate to her having combat experience. And your excuse that her melee skills translate to lightsaber skills because she has such high Force reflexes is also weak, because it's been well-established that even Force-sensitive people need training in order to be effective with a lightsaber. It's no problem for Rey though, she can handle multiple Praetorian bodyguards with ease and on par with Kylo.

Just accept that Rey is a Mary Sue. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Rian Johnson humanized Star Wars

I'd be interested in hearing your explanation of how Rian Johnson "humanized" Star Wars. What wasn't "human" about Star Wars before?

I find it curious that you claim he propelled the story forward without dismissing what came before, because a significant part of the negative reaction to The Last Jedi was that it seemed intent on dismissing almost everything that came before it. Even the people who liked the film recognized it as being subversive.

 

[Aster Jen'allé]

Rey is not a "trained warrior" because at no point do we ever see her training in combat skills. Luke also never trains her in any skills on camera besides vague Force philosophy. He never trains her how to move objects or in any combat skills. You just made up that Rey is a trained warrior in your own mind. In fact, Rey evidently doesn't even need to be trained by Luke, because she already bested him in a melee fight! We never see Rey struggle with any of the skills that took Luke multiple movies to accomplish.

The fact that she was a scavenger does not automatically equate to her having combat experience. And your excuse that her melee skills translate to lightsaber skills because she has such high Force reflexes is also weak, because it's been well-established that even Force-sensitive people need training in order to be effective with a lightsaber. It's no problem for Rey though, she can handle multiple Praetorian bodyguards with ease and on par with Kylo.

Just accept that Rey is a Mary Sue. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.




I'd be interested in hearing your explanation of how Rian Johnson "humanized" Star Wars. What wasn't "human" about Star Wars before?

I find it curious that you claim he propelled the story forward without dismissing what came before, because a significant part of the negative reaction to The Last Jedi was that it seemed intent on dismissing almost everything that came before it. Even the people who liked the film recognized it as being subversive.

Rey is not a mary sue. I could explain this until I am blue in the face, but if you take ten minutes to look up any decently knowledgeable professional they've already done that explanation for me. As to what wasn't human about Star Wars before, it was namely that most of the main characters had few to no flaws. Luke Skywalker had the look of a flaw in Empire, but then there were no consequences for his actions in Return of the Jedi. He just became this legendary Jedi Master with a week of training from Yoda in picking up rocks. He didn't have the ancient Jedi texts, no long period of time training with anyone: he was just able to do anything he needed to do. Need a dude to blow up the deathstar? Bam! Luke is there, he flew a speeder and shot womp-rats, so he's gotta be able to (with ABSOLUTELY ZERO TRAINING AT ALL) blow up the death star against a well trained military force with horrible odds of success. Why? Well, obiwan spent a couple hours telling him to "feel the drone shooting blasters" so with two hours of training and a post-mortem whisper of, "use the force" he was able to do what no-one else could with arguably LESS training than Rey (because, if you payed attention to extended current canon, Rey DID have martial training to allow her to survive on a lawless desert planet where her only way of surviving is scavenging derelict ships while fighting off others who liked that piece of tech better than she did) had when she fought an injured Kylo who was completely destroyed by his murder of Han Solo. Luke was closer to a mythic Mary Sue than Rey, BY A LONG SHOT, and was frankly inhuman in his lack of failings (except for Empire, where he showed some signs of humanity and failings which were basically erased by RoTJ). Star Wars was about magical princes and princesses with few to no flaws saving the world from a big bad black magic Emperor. The Last Jedi is about a boy who felt like his parents put their job before him lashing out and trying to find who he is in all the wrong ways. The Last Jedi is about Rey, a girl who just wants to have a place in the univers, who wants to be important and finding out that she really is just nobody. It's about Finn, a Stormtrooper who couldn't separate who he was from the horrible things done by the First Order and so he RAN AWAY, and kept running. He was basically a coward in The Force Awakens, and the first thing he does in the Last Jedi is try to run AGAIN, but he learned to stand his ground and fight. It's about Poe, hotshot pilot, learning that you can't just jump in an X-wing and blow s*** up. These are all very human things, real people with real flaws (including Luke Skywalker, who has finally come down to earth before truly becoming the hero he always dreamed of being while he stared out at twin suns) trying to save those they love. THAT is human, not magical space princes, but real people trying to deal with real problems.

One more short aside: being subversive DOES NOT MEAN being dismissive. It is going against expectations, in this case in an effort to humanize the world, in a way that changes your view on old tropes. The Last Jedi is VERY subversive, but it doesn't dismiss the past (in fact, it even vilifies those who want to destroy the past). It wants Star Wars to move forward from old tropes and work with the things at its core that mad Star Wars such a phenomenon in the first place.

 

[Name Haver]

Rey is not a mary sue. I could explain this until I am blue in the face, but if you take ten minutes to look up any decently knowledgeable professional they've already done that explanation for me. As to what wasn't human about Star Wars before, it was namely that most of the main characters had few to no flaws.

I stopped reading here.

>Likes Rey

>Criticizes everyone else for having too few flaws

 

[Ever Dawnracer]

Force projection was a thing in legends. Rey's parents weren't drunk asses, as we know from the first movie when we see them flying away after leaving her. That was Kylo lying to her.

 

[Aster Jen'allé]

I stopped reading here.

>Likes Rey

>Criticizes everyone else for having too few flaws

Ah, so I see that while I have been giving points and trying to explain how I feel and why, you were busy resorting to ad hominem. I know better than to speak with people such as yourself on the internet, and since you like ad hominem so much I will leave a bit of ad hominem for you from the great Mark Twain,

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

 

[Name Haver]

[member="Kellan"] You don't know what ad hominem means. I never personally insulted you, you're just butthurt about me disagreeing so you think I'm attacking you. Let's not pretend you're above fallacious arguments either, since you literally began your wall text with an appeal to authority.

Your points are contradictory and make no sense. Like most Star Wars apologists, you've invented entire scenarios in your own mind to justify the plot holes and weak points of TFA / TLJ. The fact that you ardently defend Rey's character against Mary Sue accusations, while at the same time claim Luke is one, shows that you don't really understand what a Mary Sue is. It seems like you haven't actually seen any other Star Wars movies besides the last two. Otherwise you'd realize how stupid you sound when you say "Luke just became a legendary Jedi Master after a week of training with Yoda!"

Luke very clearly falls into the "everyman" character archetype. His excellence in RotJ, which you complain about, is the end point of his journey of progression that took three films to arrive at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZpRnJVFrmc

 

[Pal Veda]

Not my favorite, but not my least favorite. Somewhere in the middle, maybe closer to the bottom. A lot of this has been said before (and is being argued extensively above), but here are my thoughts:

I don't care too much for Rey. She was fine in TFA, but I lost interest in her in this movie. As others have repeatedly said, she is the epitome of a Mary Sue. She has all these powers with no training. She has all these lightsaber skills with no training. She seems to have more control over her emotions than even Luke Skywalker -- again, with no training. I don't like overpowered characters that shouldn't be overpowered. I like Palpatine because you need a big bad who is more powerful than your heroes. I like Yoda because he is small, humble, and funny. Both of those characters earned it. Rey hasn't.

But while we are on Rey, I like that her parents are nobodies, and I hope that sticks. I don't need her to be connected to everyone else. It is one of the more interesting aspects of her character to me.

I'm not upset about killing off Snoke. I thought it was handled well. Explain his backstory in a novel. I don't need it in TLJ, and I think Rian Johnson's choice to exclude it was perfectly reasonable if not preferable. I think his character became less interesting in TLJ, but it was a major twist that had luckily not been spoiled for me. Yes, I want to know more about Snoke, but this was not the place.

Canto Bight and Benicio Del Toro's DJ -- not interested. Canto Bight was visually appealing, but the entire side story was distracting and ultimately not interesting to me. I really like Benicio Del Toro as an actor, but his DJ character was a huge disappointment. Interesting plot twist in the end with him taking the money and selling them out, but not worth the payout.

Speaking of, I don't care for Rose. Again, she's not a very compelling character. Her decision to save Finn at the end was quite dumb. She almost died (I actually thought she did die at the time) and almost killed Finn without affecting the First Order, while Finn's sacrifice could have potentially saved more lives, including hers.

And again speaking of wasted characters, Gwendoline Christie's Phasma is probably the most disappointing of all. I had high hopes for her. Same as DJ -- I like the actress, but the character was a waste.

Holdo's plan was meh. Her sacrifice was great. The character annoyed me throughout, but her final scene came close to redeeming her.

Leia flying through space? Please just cut that entire scene from the movie and re-release it.

I get Star Wars has humor, but I thought the scenes with Hux went way too far to undermine an otherwise interesting and compelling character. Now he's just a walking joke. I had high hopes for Hux, especially since I read the Aftermath novels. Also, seeing him grab for his gun to finish off Kylo Ren came close to redeeming the earlier ridiculousness, but then they had to do the whole scene in the AT-AT to ruin it.

I wish Luke had been portrayed as more stoic and mystical. I was hoping for more of an Obi Wan type character. I think reading some of the EU tainted me as to how his character should be. The scenes with Yoda were a little silly, but I needed that. He completely redeemed himself in the end. Force projection is a little dumb, but it was implemented incredibly well for the story.

I'm interested to see where Kylo goes from here. I'm glad he lost the mask. The Force link was a little silly at times, but not over the top. I think he's inadequate to lead the First Order, and I would have preferred they not ruin Hux and have Hux still running things with Kylo as his enforcer for a bit. But whatever.

Poe is Poe. He's the most interesting character at this point. He has the Han Solo charisma. I enjoy scenes with him, and I enjoyed him learning his lesson here.

Finn is okay. I don't dislike him, but I don't like him. He's just there.

I didn't have the warm fuzzy feeling I had when I left TFA. It was definitely not as good as Rogue One. I'll watch it again because it's Star Wars, and I love Star Wars.